A sinister exchange
Music has long proved to be remarkably effective for winning over hearts and minds – a fact not lost on the Nazi administration which controlled various countries in Europe during the Second World War. In June 1944, just six days after the D-Day landings, a sold-out concert was given by the Berlin Philharmonic under Hans Knappertsbusch in Paris’s largest concert hall. According to eye-witness accounts, the French audience responded with frenzied enthusiasm to the performances and demanded that the orchestra play several encores. That this happened in a city occupied by the Germans for almost four years seems extraordinary.
Before the War, the Nazis used a similar tactic to try and sway British public opinion in their favour. What better way of showing the hand of friendship than to launch a programme of cultural exchange with a
